


A Bull in the rain

by Gazyrlezon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 14:56:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5053141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gazyrlezon/pseuds/Gazyrlezon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gendry had always dreaded this moment. The moment Arya would be with her family again, and he would only be the bastard again, like he had been before.</p>
<p>- - - - - - -</p>
<p>Arya doesn't run from the brotherhood, Gendry isn't sold to Melisandre, and they all arive at the twins in time for a wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bull in the rain

**Author's Note:**

> Show Canon and ages.
> 
> Sorry if there are any grammer (or spelling) mistakes, English is not my first language.

Gendry had always dreaded this moment. The moment Arya would be with her family again, and he would only be the bastard again, like he had been before. What was even worse, he knew that she would have accepted him as her friend. 

_I can be your family_ , she had said, but Gendry knew that was not how the world worked. 

It astonished him, really, how a highborn girl could be so naïve, even more than he had been, once, when he had dreamt of being a knight. 

_Well, I’m a knight now_ , he supposed, _Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill_ , but he knew that title was empty. It was just a name, and it did not change the fact that he was as lowborn as one could ever be. 

He had learned that soon enough. 

And Arya would learn this too. She still believed she could get her family into letting him stay, but he knew that would not be. 

_I should be happy_ , he told himself, _happy for her._ Yet all he felt was a sense of emptiness he had never known before. 

And he doubted one could ever be truly happy in this hall. The great hall of the Twins, that was. They had brought Arya here, and someone had planted the notion in Lord Beric’s head to sell her to Lord Frey, saying it would make a fine surprise at the wedding. One of these Frey Bastards, most likely, though how they had known she was with them at all, Gendry would never know. 

Now, he supposed, she was still hidden away, until the main feast was over. 

_At least that means she doesn’t have to listen to this terrible music._ Normally he was no one to judge singers, but even he knew Lord Frey’s were exceptionally bad. 

He wondered why he was even here. To say goodbye? He could not say. Lord Frey had said that two of the brotherhood might join the feast inside the castle, so the King might say his thanks to them, and for some reason Lord Beric had chosen Gendry to accompany him. They had been given some bread with salt on it, and Lord Beric had said that was to assure one that no harm would be done to them while being guests at the Twins. Gendry had just wondered why such a thing would be even necessary. 

_He should have chosen Tom_ , Gendry thought, _he could at least sing a few songs to_ _lift the spirits in here._

They had been given some bread with salt on it, and Lord Beric had said that was to assure one that no harm would be done to them while being guests at the Twins. Gendry had just wondered why such a thing would be even necessary. 

Now he wondered what use a bastard was at a highborn’s feast. 

Besides, he did not believe he would be able to bear seeing Arya joining her family at the other end of the hall, and then leave with them. It would have been better to just leave him outside. 

But now he was here, and tried to drink enough ale to make his situation a bit better. It did not work at all. It only helped to make it worse. 

When it grew late, and Lord Frey declared it was time for the bedding, Gendry could only wonder what _that_ custom was supposed to mean. He sometimes wondered if highborns just had nothing better to do than to invent these strange customs. 

After his attempts to drown his world in ale and wine had failed miserably, he thought all he could do now was to wait until they would hand over Arya. Though it grew harder for him to actually see what was happening at the far end of the hall. 

_Shouldn’t she’ve been already handed over? Before the bedding?_

He wondered if it would make more sense if he was not drunk. 

At last, he could barely see the Lord standing up, saying something he could hardly understand, but he thought he heard something like “surprise” and “present”. He tried to get the fog out of his mind and concentrate, to see Arya one last time. 

And while the musicians started another song, a man came out of some door behind Lord Frey, and held something in his hand, for everyone to see. 

And when a gasp went through the crowd, he could see it was a head. _Arya’s_ head. 

_Arya_ , he thought, _no, that’s all wrong, she should have been safer here!_

_And who are you, the proud lord said_ , he could hear someone singing, _that I must_ _bow so low?_

He heard someone cry out, people rushing towards the high table, and thought that this must be the family he had so dreaded to meet. 

He tried to stand and almost fell over, but something gave him the strength not to. 

Then he stared at the head, still held high by this man. Gendry did not think of him. Not of the lords or ladies either. He could only think of Arya, and how she had promised that all would be well once they were here. 

He thought he could hear Lord Beric shouting something, but he did not listen. He just stared at the head of the girl he loved, and barely even noticed the bolts flying into the crowd. The ones rushing to her, her family, fell to the ground, and did not stand up again. 

_No_ , he thought, _not Arya! Not her, too!_ Everyone he had loved had died, ever since his mother was taken by a fever. 

Suddenly he could feel Lord Beric throwing him down, and only then noticed that while he had been staring the men had started fighting all around him, that the Lord had saved him from a sword. The feast had turned into a battle. 

_No, not a battle. A slaughter, a butchering of men._

Before he knew it, he had stood up again and grabbed his blacksmith’s hammer. He had taken it with him all the way from Harrenhal. A good craftsman never travelled without his tools, he had learned, for without the he would starve. 

He grabbed it now with both his hands, and started running like a madman, to the high table, where the head still was. 

He thought he could feel something piercing his skin and thrusting inside his body, but he did not care at all. 

Gendry only cared for that old man at the high table, who had promised to protect Arya. 

He raised his hammer, reached the old Lord, and brought it down with all the strength he had, even harder than he used to beat on steel. 

And the old man’s skull broke into a fountain of blood and brain, an explosion of shattered bone that left Gendry spattered with foul rotten things on his face. 

Only then did he allow the bolts in his body to kill him. 

_I’m not dying,_ he thought, _I’m only following Arya._


End file.
